]]>Let me be perfectly clear, the pain and hardship that COVID-19 is causing and will cause for so many people globally is a tragedy, but I am an optimist, which makes me look for silver linings even in the worst of situations. The one I have chosen to focus on is the positive legacy for sustainability, which will hopefully emerge from this period.

The enforced lockdown has very tangibly changed our behavioural patterns both societally and commercially. Manufacturing and operations in many sectors is either stopped or slowed down; we are travelling less by plane, car and public transport in preference for walking and cycling; and we are at home for more hours of the day. Collectively, this has had a major environmental impact in reducing our footprint in terms of air and noise pollution and perhaps, most crucially, in reducing our carbon emissions.

For instance, as someone who travels quite a bit for work, I was really taken back by the results of a new paper by researchers at the centre for Marine and Renewable Energy (MaREI) in University College Cork. Their research has shown that transport outputs, which account for 40 per cent of Ireland’s total energy consumption, are down hugely.

They have calculated that based on 12-weeks of (likely) restrictions and another 12 weeks of partial restrictions on road, aviation and rail travel could result in CO2 savings as high as 1.5million tonnes, 3.3 million tonnes and 22,000 tonnes of carbon respectively – staggering figures

If these trends are replicated across the many countries around the world that are enforcing lockdown, that adds up to a huge amount of heat trapping gas avoided. Nature is healing itself in front of our eyes and we must take notice. My hope for the future is that once we have the ability to return to ‘normality’ we won’t.

There is a once in a generation opportunity to make corrections to the unsustainable lifestyles we have been living. Leaders in business and politics must do exactly that – lead. Would it be possible to designate 1-2 days a month where manufacturing of non-essential items ceased entirely? It seems a small price to pay for the long-term benefits.

All of society must play its part in taking action. That’s why in 2018 we undertook the Business in the Community Low Carbon Pledge. – the first dedicated pledge generated by Irish business to set industry standards on sustainability and reduce carbon emissions by 50% by 2030. I’m so proud to say that Fujitsu Ireland has exceeded this target with an overall reduction of 60% in 2020 – ten years ahead of target.

This is part of a long-term effort to achieve zero emissions and alignment with the COP21 climate change agreement in Paris. Fujitsu is aiming to lower its environmental impact, such as its efforts to lower greenhouse gas emissions at all of its business and to reduce our C02 emission to zero through 2050, achieving a decarbonized society.

While we are very proud of our efforts to date, we know we cannot rest and are committed to finding new ways to achieve our carbon emissions to zero even sooner. Thus far, we’ve taken actions like switching all lighting to LEDs; replacing various equipment with more energy efficient units; using only renewable energy providers; and ensuring no waste goes to landfill. Our internal Green Team is committed to finding new initiatives and actions to do even more.

If every cloud does indeed have a silver lining, then let’s make sure it’s in a sky with clean air.

]]>https://blog.uk.fujitsu.com/responsible-business/lets-paint-the-recovery-green/feed/0AIOps – teaching the machines proactive maintenancehttps://blog.uk.fujitsu.com/cloud/aiops-teaching-the-machines-proactive-maintenance/
https://blog.uk.fujitsu.com/cloud/aiops-teaching-the-machines-proactive-maintenance/#respondThu, 28 May 2020 10:01:29 +0000https://blog.uk.fujitsu.com/?p=19683Digital transformation is moving the world in which we live at breakneck speed, with IT the driving force behind this revolution.… Continue Reading AIOps – teaching the machines proactive maintenance

]]>Digital transformation is moving the world in which we live at breakneck speed, with IT the driving force behind this revolution. We have seen rapid adoption of cloud technologies, and the types and number of devices we have to manage has increased dramatically.

We all have laptops, tablets, smart phones and IoT devices, and they are all communicating data about what we are doing and where we are doing it. Storage systems now deal with Terabytes and Petabytes of data rather than merely the Megabytes of yesteryear.

The result of all of this is a significant increase in the scale and complexity of our IT systems. So, it’s critical that the IT Operations function evolves with this new landscape.

Yet it occurred to me recently that historically the IT Operations profession has some striking similarities to the Cobbler’s children and their lack of shoes.

With all the architecture, design and development being focused on the customer’s requirements, there was little time – or money – left for ensuring that the appropriate tools were in place to effectively and efficiently manage the solution.

Dynamic alerting – understanding the norm

Thankfully, the growth of AI and machine learning algorithms now allow us to quickly extract insights from data that we previously never knew existed. With enough data, it is possible to train a model to identify the symptoms of failure prior to the failure occurring.

Most importantly, we can utilise machine learning techniques in order to identify anomalies, and even start to predict when things may go wrong. That’s where AIOps comes in.

Using the data we have gathered from our monitoring solutions we can now train a machine learning model to understand what is normal. The model can learn when the peak usage is and accept that as the norm. Furthermore, should I start seeing an increase in alerts, this can be identified as an anomaly.

This unsupervised learning can be further enhanced by removing any false alarms or associations. So, following a failure event, if a server is incorrectly associated with the failure, the ITOps team can easily update the tool’s rules by removing this rogue association.

Through a combination of AIOps learning and human review, AIOps platforms can quickly build an accurate picture of your IT infrastructure, without the painstaking work of having to enter all associations, particularly when these change so rapidly.

Having learnt how my system performs, and in particular when a failure has occurred, I can now look to leverage any of the automation tools that I have at my disposal. So, if I have discovered an issue with a storage device, for instance, I may wish to automatically restart it.

Predictive maintenance delivers in improved availability

A good example of this dynamic alerting in practice is where Fujitsu is using data from its systems to build models that can now identify hard disk failures before they actually occur. With this insight, Fujitsu can arrange proactive maintenance activity, providing a replacement before the disk has actually failed, without risking any data loss.

In addition, having been given several days’ warning, we are also better able to arrange for the maintenance activity when an engineer is either already onsite or nearby, reducing the cost and time to perform the fix.

This type of predictive maintenance activity can be adapted to many different scenarios, ranging from monitoring the performance of retail self-service terminals, to IoT devices monitoring water levels.

Further real-life examples are outlined in the associated White Paper which expands on my thoughts captured here.

The future lies in an augmented approach

Now I’m not for one moment suggesting it’s the end of the IT Operations function as we know it. What I’m suggesting is that with this additional insight, appropriate focus can be directed to who should review such change proposals and the level of scrutiny required.

The good news is this doesn’t replace the traditional event and metric gathering tools that we use today. It simply augments it.

]]>https://blog.uk.fujitsu.com/cloud/aiops-teaching-the-machines-proactive-maintenance/feed/0GenX, leadership and the new wave of authenticityhttps://blog.uk.fujitsu.com/cloud/genx-leadership-and-the-new-wave-of-authenticity/
https://blog.uk.fujitsu.com/cloud/genx-leadership-and-the-new-wave-of-authenticity/#respondThu, 28 May 2020 09:18:02 +0000https://blog.uk.fujitsu.com/?p=19671I don’t know about you, but I am really enjoying the new wave of authenticity washing over business. Through sheer necessity… Continue Reading GenX, leadership and the new wave of authenticity

]]>I don’t know about you, but I am really enjoying the new wave of authenticity washing over business. Through sheer necessity in recent months we have invited colleagues into our homes to observe us as we juggle multiple roles – domestic and professional – breaking down many of the boundaries that previously separated home and work.

For my generation, GenX, this is both disconcerting and liberating in equal measure.

Disconcerting because much of Generation X was conditioned in its formative years to project a certain persona in order to be ‘successful’. Back then our professional role models embodied certain characteristics and we sought to emulate them (or was that just me?) as we ‘grew up’ in business. And liberating – well, because today’s work culture at last encourages us to be our authentic selves at work and celebrates the benefits the rounded individual (rather than the robot) can bring through diversity of thought and action.

Having been educated in the 1980s, us GenXers burst into the workforce brimming with self-belief that we could do – and be – anything. I can remember how it felt arriving at work in the early 1990s (particularly entering a creative profession), full of ideas and drive to make a difference. Sadly, the workplace wasn’t quite ready for us.

Somewhat disappointed, over time, many of us found ourselves mirroring the behaviours of the leaders of the day. We created a new persona and an accompanying elevator pitch, polished to within an inch of its life, ready for the job interview or panel discussion where the opportunity would eventually arise to showcase it to the world. We fought our way through unconscious (and conscious) bias, jumped hurdles and grafted day and night to master our craft. We learned (wrongly) that revealing your true personality at work in the 1990s wasn’t the done thing if you were to become a leader.

I’m sure if we were to reflect on those elevator pitches today, we would find them quite funny (that’s if we could find them). They certainly wouldn’t quite have the same ring to them. And that’s because the days have passed when leaders need to fit a certain profile. And thank goodness for that. Today, we are encouraged to bring our ‘whole selves’ to work, and in the case of my own employer, Fujitsu, to ‘be completely you’.

And that’s why, as we adapt to a world where many more people work from home, not only do we get to know each other’s families and pets (not to mention marvel at the mandatory book collections that are de rigeur as a video call backdrop), but we also increase our capacity for compassion and empathy because we see real people and real life – in all their glory.

With hindsight, I don’t necessarily think it was a bad thing for GenX to be conditioned in this way; after all, 51% of leadership roles globally are now fulfilled by GenXers so we must have done something right. We dug deep, working relentlessly, travelling excessively and proving ourselves, earning the right to take those roles.

I am so pleased that the new wave of authenticity has arrived at a time when I can do something with it. I like to think that I can blend the ‘edge’ I acquired fighting through those tough years in the 1990s and noughties with my innate empathy, which finally has the chance to emerge from the shadows, to the benefit of the people with whom I engage daily.

With time, maturity and experience, GenX has reprogrammed, ditching the polished pitch in favour of a more authentic bio, which is all the richer because it showcases our uniqueness – not our sameness.

The current global crisis has forced us all to be more considerate and to respect the challenges and constraints others are facing, and there’s never been a better time to be a leader.

]]>https://blog.uk.fujitsu.com/cloud/genx-leadership-and-the-new-wave-of-authenticity/feed/0Being a Responsible Business in Challenging Timeshttps://blog.uk.fujitsu.com/responsible-business/being-a-responsible-business-in-challenging-times/
https://blog.uk.fujitsu.com/responsible-business/being-a-responsible-business-in-challenging-times/#respondWed, 27 May 2020 13:07:43 +0000https://blog.uk.fujitsu.com/?p=19655Fujitsu Ireland CEO, Tony O’Malley explores corporate social responsibility in light of the current situation. Continue Reading Being a Responsible Business in Challenging Times

]]>I’m regularly encouraged by the strides that have been made due to the hard work of committed individuals in Ireland’s business community to make CSR a business priority. Their work has led to both the recognition and the subsequent action that shows that being a responsible business is critical to organizational and commercial success.

That said, I am reading and listening to the same economic forecasts that you are, and I am concerned that in the current economic climate many businesses will be tempted to, or even unintentionally, allow their responsible business programmes to slide down the priority list. CSR, when done well, means taking responsibility for your business’ impact on society. This cannot be put on hold just because the operating environment is more challenging.

Now more than ever is when business leaders must stand resolutely behind the values which are espoused during fairer conditions. If we do not, then we will undermine and potentially reverse the recent progress made on greater sustainability, employee wellbeing, diversity and inclusion and community engagement.

I have taken great solace in the ingenuity of Irish businesses and their willingness to react to the COVID-19 situation for the greater good. Several companies have reconfigured to deliver everything from PPE and sanitizer to ventilators. Many are also adapting to comply with the necessary health guidelines. We must capture this same spirit and channel it towards responsible business efforts in 2020 and beyond.

This pandemic has served as a timely reminder to us all that we live in a globally connected world — economically and ecologically — with shared challenges. While we will succeed in fighting COVID-19, other global challenges such as climate change and creating a circular economy will continue at the forefront of global issues with local consequences in need of coordinated action. The scale and speed of the global response gives me great hope in our ability to collectively tackle these challenges and make strides to create a more sustainable way of life. Perhaps if we lean into our new found spirit of ingenuity and ‘can-do’ attitude formed during this crisis, we can come up with more creative and previously unimaginable ways of fast-tracking our efforts and impacts on the big societal issues that haven’t gone away, and won’t go away, once this pandemic is dealt with.

Responsible business is a leading priority for Fujitsu and it will remain there due to simple reason that it has a positive impact in all sorts of measurable ways. I and our responsible business team acknowledge the many challenges that will need to be overcome to fulfill our ambitious plans this year, but we remain committed to doing so because it is the right thing to do.

]]>https://blog.uk.fujitsu.com/responsible-business/being-a-responsible-business-in-challenging-times/feed/0Thinking outside the office: how remote working supports neurodiversity in the workforcehttps://blog.uk.fujitsu.com/responsible-business/thinking-outside-the-office-how-remote-working-supports-neurodiversity-in-the-workforce/
https://blog.uk.fujitsu.com/responsible-business/thinking-outside-the-office-how-remote-working-supports-neurodiversity-in-the-workforce/#commentsFri, 15 May 2020 16:57:53 +0000https://blog.uk.fujitsu.com/?p=19610For many of us, Covid-19 has meant swapping the office environment for our home. Many have found this understandably frustrating due… Continue Reading Thinking outside the office: how remote working supports neurodiversity in the workforce

]]>For many of us, Covid-19 has meant swapping the office environment for our home. Many have found this understandably frustrating due to a lack of face-to-face social interaction.

But for some people with autism – like me – remote working has been a welcomed change.

I’ve been working from home since March and I’ve found my home provides an environment that suits the way my brain processes information.

For example, many people with autism find they over-process sensory information. Commuting to, and working in, an office environment can present a variety of noises, sounds, and sights to process, which can sometimes be challenging.

Working in a comfortable home environment decreases the amount of sensory information that needs to be processed, which leaves me in a more productive state of mind.

Scheduled support and socialising

Social distancing can also be beneficial to people with autism because it limits the stress of adhoc social interactions.

Instead, I can interact with my colleagues through video conferencing technology at scheduled times throughout the week. This alleviates the worry around impromptu conversations.

However, it is still important to keep up communication and collaboration while everyone is working disparately. And scheduled calls are an opportunity for teams to offer support to one another, as well as to share updates on work.

Networks are also another useful way to share and receive support outside of your day-to-day team.

For example, I’m currently developing a website for our partner Autistica, which will allow people with autism to share their experiences during Covid-19 and beyond. Fujitsu also have a disability Employee Network group called SEED, of which I’m the Autism Champion.

Support networks like this are particularly important because they allow you to connect with people over shared experiences. Even in lock down this can be a useful way to expand your social life in a comfortable setting via Facetime or social media.

Having a mentor is also a beneficial way to support not just neurodiverse employees, but everyone currently working from home. This is someone who can talk to you about issues you may be having as they arise.

Fujitsu also has an app called BuddyConnect to specifically help employees with autism. This has a number of features, including a colour-coded wellbeing tracker.

BuddyConnect users can record how they’re feeling through a traffic light system which triggers action when necessary. This could be a chat with your buddy over instant messenger or a call to an employee support line.

The future of remote working and neurodiverse employees

There’s been much discussion on what the future of work will look like now businesses have experienced mass working from home.

Some are pining for the social atmosphere an office provides. But others, like me, have learned that a home environment cultivates a more productive mindset.

My experience has highlighted that what might be one employee’s ideal environment, may be another employee’s distraction.

As working practices become more and more flexible it’s important that businesses understand the needs of neurodiverse employees.

Remote working could create a more productive and comfortable environment for people with autism. And now is the time to identify the hurdles that need to be overcome in order to help companies embrace it.

]]>https://blog.uk.fujitsu.com/responsible-business/thinking-outside-the-office-how-remote-working-supports-neurodiversity-in-the-workforce/feed/3D&I is the future – and businesses need to step uphttps://blog.uk.fujitsu.com/responsible-business/di-is-the-future-and-businesses-need-to-step-up/
https://blog.uk.fujitsu.com/responsible-business/di-is-the-future-and-businesses-need-to-step-up/#respondMon, 11 May 2020 16:25:52 +0000https://blog.uk.fujitsu.com/?p=19599This is a guest blog authored by Simon Abrahams, Industry Analyst – Cloud and Infrastructure Services at Teknowlogy Group. Although the… Continue Reading D&I is the future – and businesses need to step up

Although the coronavirus pandemic is currently present in the here and now, organisations are already planning how they will build their businesses back to pre-COVID levels.

A crucial battleground will be how to hire the best talent – especially when many are expecting headcount requests to be scrutinised more closely than ever. For many organizations, the key will lie in reimagining which candidates could have most impact – and that all starts with a fundamental cultural shift.

The monoculture problem

There’s plenty of fish in the sea, but we’ll only find them if we expand the talent pools we choose to fish in.

It’s well documented that many managers gravitate towards what they know. And if a hiring manager works in a small team where integration is essential, people may be blindsided into hiring people who look and sound just like themselves and are therefore ‘easier’ to integrate.

I don’t want to blame people, since often these biases are entirely unconscious. But they are biases all the same. And not only is that not fair, it’s also not in the businesses’ best interests.

Why? Well the reason is twofold. Firstly, there is no single source of the ‘best’ talent, and consequently the best candidates come from a multitude of different backgrounds – thankfully, this is now well understood.

The second problem of a monoculture is, simply, it doesn’t reflect the lifeblood of a business –customers.

Society is incredibly varied. It includes different genders, ethnicities, and people with mental and physical disabilities. Whatever a company offers – whether it be a product or a service – it needs to be built to serve a diverse market.

An inclusive workforce is able to project the views, opinions, and ideas of wider society. This makes businesses much more sensitive to the needs of their customers, enabling them to build much stronger customer relationships.

Fixing the problem

So what practical changes can businesses make today?

For one thing, recruiters can change where they usually look for talent. Try different job boards, different university campuses, different recruitment centres. We should even be rethinking how we write job specs. Today’s dry, jargon-full job descriptions might appeal to one type of candidate, but completely alienate others.

Furthermore, I’d love to see bigger, more ambitious projects aimed at tackling the problem. Projects like Fujitsu’s BuddyConnect. This is an app that connects those with autism to specially trained ‘buddies’ from across the organisation. The app enables employees to track their mood, helping buddies know when to lend support.

This app was so successful, it started being used for a number of neurodiverse individuals – not just those with autism. It just goes to show what’s possible when you make your work environment more inclusive.

Going forward

Of course, it’s not just neurodiverse people who may require help settling into the workforce. The recent pandemic has had the most disruptive impact on our working lives in living memory.

People across the world are feeling stressed, confused, scared, and (quite literally) isolated. And whether it be ways-of-working pragmatics or managing mental health, businesses need to overcome the challenge of an atomised workforce.

This isn’t something many businesses are used to contending with. And I think it will have a lasting impact. If not with dealing with mental health, then at least in working from home initiatives going forward.

The flexibility of working anywhere can make a huge impact on employee wellbeing – from parents struggling to balance their family life to individuals with physical disabilities who struggle to commute.

Covid-19 has forced businesses to move remote working to their number one priority. And now it’s there, hopefully it will make the workplace more inclusive for those with disabilities, those with family commitments, or generally anyone who finds it hard to work in an office five days a week.

Coming out of today’s uncertain times, I do see D&I as being more important than ever. Businesses have seen the value of taking care of their workforces – and I think they’ll want that to continue.

Furthermore, as the skills gap widens, and the need for innovation increases, I see more businesses realising diversity is the only way to ensure they secure first-class talent. And when they do, I think we can all look forward to a much fairer, more inclusive society.

]]>https://blog.uk.fujitsu.com/responsible-business/di-is-the-future-and-businesses-need-to-step-up/feed/0How to maintain a good site culture without a sitehttps://blog.uk.fujitsu.com/reshaping-business/how-to-maintain-a-good-site-culture-without-a-site-fujitsu-ceo-tony-omalley/
https://blog.uk.fujitsu.com/reshaping-business/how-to-maintain-a-good-site-culture-without-a-site-fujitsu-ceo-tony-omalley/#respondThu, 30 Apr 2020 13:16:01 +0000https://blog.uk.fujitsu.com/?p=19574Fujitsu CEO Tony O’Malley shares how to maintain a positive company culture when your workforce are remote working. Continue Reading How to maintain a good site culture without a site

]]>Who we are as a company (our culture) must be about more than simply where we work together. As we’ve seen in recent weeks, for many businesses and organisations the physical place where we work is a redundant measure of a company’s working culture.

Companies have gone to great lengths to create workplaces that are aesthetically pleasing in order to create an environment where people want to spend time. And while we all enjoy a cool looking and comfortable place to work, it’s really the people that create and define the working culture – our emotional attachment to work. This, I believe is one of the reasons why the last number of weeks has been so difficult for employees who are typically office bound. So, what are the things you can do to try to maintain and build on a good working culture when everyone is offsite?

Flexibility and empathy

Maintaining a positive culture is not linear. I recently heard a colleague describe this lockdown period (flippantly) as a slow trauma experience, throughout which we are experiencing a spectrum of challenging emotions. Within this, there will be times when people are feeling more and less motivated. We must find the right balance for what works for the individual. While some are balancing responsibilities to family and friends, others are lacking those day-to-day human interactions and are feeling isolated.

For many employees it’s a matter of simply missing work friends and the daily routines which make our week more enjoyable – the coffee, the chat, the lunchtime walk, the post work drink. I can attest first-hand to the high volume of virtual meetings that have taken over the working day since working from home. These new routines don’t work for everyone and we need to be flexible and empathetic. While not a solution, its hugely important that our teams feel supported and understood. I think, on balance, this will mean more on a human level to employees than many of the perks and benefits that companies can offer at this time.

Trust

There’s no doubt that when you remove the physical interactions of work, a company’s culture is put to the test. For business leaders it’s a time when company values like trust and empowering people must be reinforced in the hope that the cultural foundations already laid, stand up to the rigours of these exceptional circumstances. If the company’s values do not reflect its employees’ emotional attachment to the company, fissures will emerge. When not working side-by-side, we must live our espoused values with even more conviction.

When we trust our employees, they have better job satisfaction, are more likely to collaborate well with others, perform better and crucially experience reduced stress. I also believe that this trust has a cascading effect. When employees are empowered through trust, they take genuine ownership of their work. In a business like ours where clients are serviced, I believe this has the knock-on effect of fostering greater trust with our customers. In times of uncertainty, the importance of this cannot be understated.

Channeling the collective good

Where we can, we need to offer the ways and means that allow people to come together. I’ve long been a big advocate of CSR as a powerful tool to make a positive impact on the communities in which we are based but also as great binding force for employees. In my experience people go to incredible efforts when they feel they are contributing to a common good and a worthwhile cause. There is no shortage of charities and organisations that need our help at this time.

While we can’t do the kind of community engagement we would under normal circumstances, companies are being hugely creative in finding ways to support our charity partners, frontline workers and communities. For example, I’m hugely proud of members of our team who are delivering food to those who are vulnerable at home and manning phones for charity support services. As a company we have also been providing wellbeing webinars that focus on nutrition, exercise, mindfulness and coping with self-isolation.

Rest and relaxation

A number of recent survey results have shown that on average people are working more hours at home than they would be when in the office. When the boundaries between work and home life are blurred, the working culture needs to be at its strongest.

We need to encourage people to keep as much normality as possible in both their working hours and, crucially, in taking time off. Even those who feel that they are managing this situation well need to take days away from their home office. Time to relax and decompress has never been more important and employees need to hear from business leaders that taking down time is the right thing to do for their mental health.

While many will be holding off in the hope that travel restrictions will be eased and holidays in Ireland, or possibly even abroad will be possible, in truth, that reality is likely still many months away. Encourage your people to take their leave now when it is arguably needed most for their mental health.

Good communications

Those with an interest in PR and communications will know that the first rule of communicating in a crisis is to be proactive. It is vital to keep all members of your team updated and share honest, current information with them. Anxiety grows in the absence of information. In a time when many are losing their jobs or being put on reduced hours this has never been more important.

I think this is also a time when employees need to hear more than ever that their work and their contributions matter and are valued. If all of this sounds straight forward it likely means that you are doing well in keeping your people motivated and positive with a good organisational culture – even from a distance.

]]>https://blog.uk.fujitsu.com/reshaping-business/how-to-maintain-a-good-site-culture-without-a-site-fujitsu-ceo-tony-omalley/feed/0Fight or flight? Learning how to work remotely – it’s a skill in its own right! Here’s 19 top tipshttps://blog.uk.fujitsu.com/responsible-business/fight-or-flight-learning-how-to-work-remotely-its-a-skill-in-its-own-right-heres-19-top-tips/
https://blog.uk.fujitsu.com/responsible-business/fight-or-flight-learning-how-to-work-remotely-its-a-skill-in-its-own-right-heres-19-top-tips/#respondThu, 30 Apr 2020 11:23:49 +0000https://blog.uk.fujitsu.com/?p=19555It’s amazing how quickly something seemingly alien can become the norm. When the UK government announced a lockdown on 23rd March,… Continue Reading Fight or flight? Learning how to work remotely – it’s a skill in its own right! Here’s 19 top tips

]]>It’s amazing how quickly something seemingly alien can become the norm. When the UK government announced a lockdown on 23rd March, many of us went into a spin about our impending loss of ‘liberty’ (I confess, myself included).

How would we cope without the daily commute, the on-the-go barista coffees and evening rush to the gym? What would we do without the routines and rituals that make our lives what they are? And for those who had never experienced remote working on such a scale before, how would we adapt to the plethora of tools, technologies and platforms we’re expected to juggle to connect with our leaders, colleagues and teams?

For many COVID-19 has triggered a fight-or-flight stress response. Confronted with an unknown, unforeseen threat has triggered radical decisions fuelled by the intensity of the situation.

Beyond the crisis I believe many people will reconsider the way they work and question what’s right for them long-term. So will you stay and fight, adapting to the new normal, or does the thought of it make you want to run for the hills?

Before you make a snap decision, consider this; working remotely is in itself a skill. If you thought you could simply lift-and-shift your job to remote working, think again.

As someone who has worked from home for over 20 years, I believe you have to ‘learn’ to work remotely effectively, and to do it well, you have to discover what works for you – often, the hard way. If you are a leader then I believe it is even more important that you accept that you need to ‘re-learn’ how to engage and lead in a virtual world.

On the flip side, there will be people who simply don’t feel the sense of liberation presented by remote working, and miss the structure of a workplace, face-face human contact and the clear separation of work and home lives. I believe these are the people who will fight the trend towards long-term home working and may even opt to change direction completely, attracted by some of the professions that have been lauded throughout the crisis.

My personal estimate is that around 20% of people won’t return to their previous roles (no scientific evidence – just a perception). As a result, we will see a surge in recruitment of ‘key workers’ from other sectors, more mobility across industries, and a greater mix of diversity, skills and talent where they are much needed.

The truth is that we have all learned a lot about ourselves from the COVID-19 experience. Whether we flee or fight the trend towards home working, it’s likely that we will know instinctively by now if it is for us or not.

Businesses, too, are already reconsidering how they operate. COVID-19 has acted as a catalyst – where previously there was some suspicion of home working, concern about employee productivity and insistence on ‘line of sight’ to employees, remote working has actually been a revelation. In recent research* around 60% of employees said they are working more than their usual working week and are more productive than ‘normal’. Businesses can’t ignore the savings they stand to make on property costs if they embrace remote working on a long-term basis, as well as the many softer benefits.

There are endless traps in remote working life, which (if you are new to it) you may already have fallen into. Here are my nineteen top tips for working remotely (it’s no coincidence that there are 19):

Routine

Keep some sort of morning routine before you sit at your desk. If you don’t before you know it you will be working in your pyjamas at 11.30am! Get up in time to take a shower and brush your teeth.

If you don’t get into the office at 7am, don’t head to the laptop at 7am. Keep a semblance of your ‘usual’ logging on time. If you are not an early bird, you’ll find it messes with your body’s natural rhythms if you try to work before you are ready.

Make sure you have had something to drink and eat (at least a drink) before you start working. Otherwise your energy levels will slump by 10am.

Make sure you have a defined space for work and if it’s not a specific room, make sure you can clear it away at the end of each day so you’re not encroaching on your living spaces and blurring home/work boundaries.

Productivity/satisfaction

If you have diary control, block out key slots in the week to plan, regroup, review and remind yourself what you still need to do.

There’s a plethora of software to facilitate remote working and team collaboration – find the ones that work best for you as in practice you may not need them to all be ‘always on’ and it can become overwhelming if you have multiple channels sending you notifications all day.

At the end of the day, try to take 5 minutes to summarise where you got up to with key tasks, so you know what you achieved and feel a sense of satisfaction.

Make a short list of priorities for the next day so you can check it before you start the day and get focused.

Food and drink

Easy to say, I know, but try not to eat your meals at the laptop. Even if it’s five minutes, eat elsewhere.

Clear your coffee/tea/water/food equipment away as you go along. If you let it accumulate through the day it will annoy you!

If you have a tendency to visit the fridge frequently (even the most steely-willed do!) then buy and prepare a stash of snacks and put them in the fridge ready – just as you would pack a lunch box or snack for the office.

Wellbeing – mental and physical

Take breaks – if you are the sort of person who gets engrossed in a task, put a post-it note on your screen or set an alarm on your phone every hour to remind you to move!

If the weather is good and you have gaps in your diary and it works for you, use an hour in the day to grab some free time and go outdoors, then work for an extra hour later if it fits.

Take the occasional conference call on your mobile phone/device so that you can walk and talk or listen in to calls in the outdoors rather than being glued to your desk.

If you manage people, check in with them frequently and for shorter times to maintain energy levels and motivation (both ways).

Compartmentalise

If you are someone who likes to use social media, try to find slots in the day when you can check your feeds – maybe once every few hours, or during breaks.

Make lists on paper/offline – using ‘right brain’ thinking is useful for planning and for creative tasks, and keeping a record helps with the beginning/end day productivity tasks (covered under the ‘productivity/satisfaction’ section).

If you hear from friends and family during the daytime, give them times when it is appropriate to contact you – for example at lunch time, rather than feeling your work and personal life blur into one another.

Know when it’s time to stop – when you have summarised your day, prepared for the day ahead, tidied your workspace, do something different – whatever that may be – basically, break the cycle and don’t go back.

Remember, we’re only human. Give yourself time to ‘learn’ to work from home. It is a skill, it’s not a straight transition from one to the other – you’ll get there, and you will work out what’s best for you.

And finally, whether you have decided working remotely is for you long-term or not, it’s definitely here to stay. I have been very fortunate to work for an organisation that promotes flexible working and equips its people with the tools, policies and flexibility to work in a way that suits them individually. Fujitsu is a leader in workplace and workforce solutions (according to Gartner’s Magic Quadrant) and I am proud to work for a company that practises what it preaches when it comes to agile and flexible working.

If you would like to find out more about Fujitsu’s workplace solutions, perfectly suited to thriving in the COVID-19 world, visit our website.

]]>https://blog.uk.fujitsu.com/responsible-business/fight-or-flight-learning-how-to-work-remotely-its-a-skill-in-its-own-right-heres-19-top-tips/feed/0Retail at the heart of the communityhttps://blog.uk.fujitsu.com/reshaping-business/retail-at-the-heart-of-the-community/
https://blog.uk.fujitsu.com/reshaping-business/retail-at-the-heart-of-the-community/#respondMon, 27 Apr 2020 18:01:24 +0000https://blog.uk.fujitsu.com/?p=19526Recently, I’ve had the opportunity to interact with and observe many of our incredible retail customers and partners across the nation.… Continue Reading Retail at the heart of the community

]]>Recently, I’ve had the opportunity to interact with and observe many of our incredible retail customers and partners across the nation.

Figuring out how process change and technology can help an organisation achieve their aspirations is something I am very familiar with from my previous roles in customer advocacy and client engagement.

However, since the start of the pandemic and the subsequent lockdown, we’ve all found ourselves far outside of our comfort zones.

The entire retail industry has been shaken to its core as a result of the significant shifts in buying habits caused by Covid-19.

And while much well-deserved attention has been placed on our front-line heroes, such as those keeping people alive in hospitals and care homes, I want to discuss another group of heroes who have stepped up this year – our retail workers.

In this blog post, I am going to detail some of the challenges the industry has had to contend with since this all began and share some of the extraordinary stories of innovation and unbridled will-power that is currently keeping us all fed.

An unprecedented challenge

Since rumours of a possible lockdown started back in mid-March, the retail industry has been on a rollercoaster ride.

Further complicating matters was the gargantuan logistical challenge of meeting the ballooning number of home delivery orders in a timely manner, especially when focussed on the neediest in society. Even Ocado, with all its trumpeted automation, had to concede that it wouldn’t be able to deliver to more than 250,000 homes per week.

And public attitudes and behaviours have changed over the weeks too – from panic buying at the outset causing severe stock shortage, to declining trust due to online capacity challenges. And even more worrying, we’ve seen a rise in verbal abuse of retail staff (62% of shopworkers in the last 34 days according to Usdaw).

This has been a challenge like none other, and very quickly businesses and the government realised that the only way through would be with cooperation from across the whole industry.

There had to be a focus on the elderly and vulnerable. And measures were needed to ensure the health and wellbeing of customers and employees alike.

Necessity is the mother of invention

Freed of the usual constraints and motivated like never before, retailers and service providers of all stripes have partnered up and devised ingenious tactics and innovations to handle these challenges in a short amount of time.

Sainsbury’s has enabled grocery deliveries to the elderly and key workers through its rapid home delivery bike service, Chop Chop, which is now operating from ‘dark’ convenience stores.

Meanwhile, M&S and Aldi have launched food box programs online for vulnerable customers, with M&S also recognising employee commitment by raising the pay of its front-line staff.

Boots has nearly doubled its Pharmacy Delivery and Collection service in the last four weeks to help those self-isolating.

And when it comes to reducing the spread of the virus, retailers have been proactive. Practically every store has introduced marshals to remind customers to maintain the two metre social distancing rules, installed protective safety screens and extended the role of their in-store mobile scanning apps.

Other measures include raising the contactless spending limit and introducing greater contactless shopping.

There’re still some serious stock issues to resolve, especially in the household category where some essentials continue to be restricted by volume of purchase. Conversely, fashion retailers and their suppliers are now facing into huge seasonal clothing dilemmas.

But considering how hard and fast these market change dynamics came about, this management of supply has been hugely impressive.

Supporting the NHS

Retailers have also devised programs to help the NHS manage this outbreak.

There has been an incredible outpouring of volunteers, with programs like Asda’s Volunteer Shopping Card making it possible for people not constrained by the virus to help their community by shopping on behalf of those in isolation, without breaching social distancing measures.

A future changed

While retailers have had to make these alterations to their industry very quickly, many have cut to the very core of our society – the way we shop, the way we interact with each other and the way we use technology. So, I think many things about the sector will be different from here on in.

People are already getting used to new shopping modes for one.

What’s more, with some level of social distancing likely for the foreseeable future, we’re going to see a push in technology to enable permanent changes in operating models, processes and customer engagement.

At Fujitsu, as long-time champions of co-creation and collaboration, we’ve been busy sharing our expertise and technological knowledge with businesses.

We’ve been offering quantum-inspired technology to help retailers optimise their delivery efforts by up to 10-15%, and are helping many organisations with infrastructure challenges to enable more of their employees to work remotely and productively.

We’ve also worked with telecommunication companies to help increase front-line capacity, such as with the East of England Ambulance Service.

However, I want to end by expressing how grateful and in awe I am of the tremendous work all retail workers have done.

At short notice, there has been a huge commitment from them and suppliers across the end to end supply chain to keep stores and deliveries going through many different channels. There’re hundreds of examples of people putting themselves at risk for complete strangers, like you and me.

As well as the front-line health community, retail workers are among the unsung heroes of this pandemic – and each and everyone one of them deserves our gratitude and respect

]]>https://blog.uk.fujitsu.com/reshaping-business/retail-at-the-heart-of-the-community/feed/0What will life look like after COVID-19?https://blog.uk.fujitsu.com/reshaping-business/what-will-life-look-like-after-covid-19/
https://blog.uk.fujitsu.com/reshaping-business/what-will-life-look-like-after-covid-19/#respondTue, 21 Apr 2020 15:39:53 +0000https://blog.uk.fujitsu.com/?p=19483Fujitsu's Tony O'Malley explores what life after COVID-19 might look like, from remote working to the retail sector. Continue Reading What will life look like after COVID-19?

]]>It’s safe to say that everyone’s attention has been rightly on the here-and-now in terms of personally and professionally managing, what is, the great crisis of our time – COVID-19.

But while the temptation is to stay focused on the immediate, it’s also hugely important and helpful to look ahead at what comes next: How will we react as a society, and as a workforce, when restrictions begin to ease?

This lockdown will have lasting and profound effects on us both in our personal and professional lives. With that in mind, I wanted to share some thoughts on how life could look post lockdown.

Remote working

It’s safe to say that for many of us who are traditionally office-bound, the concept of working from home has been thoroughly proven. Within Fujitsu Global Delivery, we transitioned form 5% regular homeworking to 90% in ten days, without any impact to service. The toothpaste is firmly out of the tube and it is not going back in.

I think it’s likely that remote working will become a firm fixture for many workplaces, as part of a dynamic working environment. Everyone has, rightly, been very accepting that we need to be flexible and understanding of everyone’s home environments. Kids and pets invading video calls is no longer a cause for embarrassment or something to be apologised for. I think and hope this empathy will be one of the lasting legacies.

Working from home requires a high level of trust between employees and employers that goals will be met and businesses can function with little interruption. I think the Irish work culture is well disposed to these changes and will thrive from it. It’s my experience that people are very self-motivated and feel responsible for their own work both to themselves and to their teammates.

The likely increase in working from home as well as other government restrictions could have major implications on all sorts of other behavioural patterns like how and when we travel. Working remotely inevitably means less travel and commuting which will help our strained public transport systems, reduce commuter traffic and will have the welcome by-product of lowering our individual carbon footprint. We’ve seen the welcome data of reduced pollution levels in many countries that have enforced restrictions, as well as images of nature regenerating during lockdown. A continued slow down of some elements of society would be a welcome prospect from a sustainability perspective.

A hopeful further implication of both these changed travel and working behaviours is an easing in pressure on our major cities’ housing capacity. With less of an emphasis on needing to live near to where you work, people will be in a position to expand their radius for where they may want to live. Less demand for a concentrated area means a reduction in house prices and rent costs. A degree of market reset may hopefully assist some of the high-profile societal issues including emergency accommodation shortages and the tragic homeless crisis that has affected far too may for too long.

Beyond the day-to-day, I also believe people will be more discerning about what business travel they undertake. With people now accustomed to video conferencing and virtual meetings, I imagine there will be less and less business travel for stand-alone meetings. That’s not to say that it won’t happen, but I think the volume will decrease substantially. Similarly, large scale international conferences and trade fairs will have to adapt and perhaps start selling virtual tickets to their keynotes and panel sessions. That said, having attended a lot of these events, much of their value comes from the physical networking and the chance encounters that take place. It’s hard to achieve that in a virtual environment. Now is a time for creativity.

Another area where the virtual and physical experience must learn to coexist is in the retail sector. As in other countries the Irish retail sector (non-essential goods) is suffering terribly during lockdown. It is a sad truth that some business will not recover from this period. High street retail was already in a very competitive battle, but the situation has been exacerbated greatly. Even those businesses which have entered lockdown in relatively good health will struggle to rebound and there may be more closures to follow even after the lockdown begins to ease. Rents, rates, insurance and staffing will all prove to be challenges in the competitive retail environment.

The positives are that those with good e-commerce platforms and technology strategies are certainly best placed to recover fastest as consumers move more of their purchasing online. Another selling point where I think we will see retailers recover lost ground is to emphasise the experience of shopping. As restrictions are eased, consumers will be craving enjoyable physical shopping experiences with friends and family. Those who can provide this will benefit the most. Something which will likely aid this is the increase in the tap and go payment limit to €50. Anything which can make the retail experience as frictionless as possible while retaining the necessary security measures should be welcomed.

A further trend which I think, and hope, we will likely see continue is the great sense of community that has been fostered and engendered throughout Ireland. Irish media and social media have been reporting and highlighting the great lengths our communities, clubs and societies have gone to, to look after our most vulnerable in society. I think, and hope, as restrictions ease you will see people retain these bonds and continue to be more mindful of those in our communities who need some extra help and attention.

In times of crisis we band together well. In this spirit I think you will see Irish people making a concerted effort to support local shops and buy Irish products and services over the coming months and even years. This will be hugely important to stimulate the economy. As highlighted in a recent Seanad report on small and medium sized businesses (published in May 2019), the SME sector is vibrant and diverse, accounting for 99% of active enterprises and 65% of all employment in Ireland – in excess of 1 million people nationwide. The same report notes, however, that SMEs have not yet fully embraced digital technologies with just 30% of SMEs selling products and services online. There is certainly scope to innovate this part of the economy and get it back on its feet quickly.

Thank you for your service

Finally, we will not forget the work that has been done by frontline staff in our hospitals and care settings; as well as those making and selling essential goods. Their contribution to keeping Ireland going has been indelibly inked on our psyche that should never be forgotten.